He’s turning my mind to mush. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t seem to be taping any new shows, just keeps showing the same dozen or so “exorcisms” over and over again. Hell, in the month of October, he’s showing the same show every week, and that’s a rerun of last year’s anti-Halloween show. The same show four times in the same month? He must be running out of money.
He claims to be the world’s foremost expert on the occult, but it is painfully obvious to anyone who’s read a book on the subject that wasn’t written by Bob Larson that the dude doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Oh, yes, and he can make a snap diagnosis of exorcism on the spot. The Catholic Church spends weeks, if not months, investigating a case to make sure it is an actual possession, and not some form of mental illness. But Bob has the power to see that a person is possessed the first time he lays eyes on them. Of course the fact that he believes that all depression, anger, or general bad moods are caused by demonic possession. That gives him a big edge. That and the fact that people in the audience “manifest” demons on cue helps, too.
I’ve heard his radio show, no longer carried by my local Christian radio station. I’ve heard him make a diagnosis of depression over the phone in the space of two or three minutes, then devote the rest of the segment to the exorcism. If driving the “demon” out takes more than the alotted time, he tapes it and plays the rest of it on the next day’s show.
I’ve always found it interesting that the “demons” he casts out never use any swear words. Or speak in languages that are unknown to the person whose body they’re inhabiting, or show superhuman strength, or have any psychic abilities (like knowing about Bob’s adulterous affairs, and that he dumped his wife for a younger woman)
I think the most amazing thing about Bob Larson is that he’s still in business.
I’m fairly certain that neither you, or I nor anyone else has ever read a book on the occult (or any other subject) written by Bob Larson. As far as I know, all of his books were ghost-written.
It was pretty pathetic back when he had a big nationwide radio show and “Larson’s New Book of Cults” had just come out: people would call in with questions, and he A) wouldn’t accept the calls unless the caller provided page numbers and B) more often than not, wouldn’t know the answer.
Why in the name of all that is decent and logical would anyone watch Bob Larson? The man is an idiot of gargantuan proportions. In fact, I will not be at all surprised the day that Bob breaks down and confesses that actually, he has been possessed by Satanic forces this whole time and that’s why he has been spreading all this nonsense and stupidity.
I used to listen to him in my younger days because
A) His main offices were about 5 minutes from where one of my best friends used to live and we saw him in passing occasionally. Think of it as “keeping an eye on your enemies”
B) and probably the main reason, if I’m honest: there was a traffic-accident sort of fascination to his show. It was so well/badly done it was amazing. He had a three or four week sequence, before “satanic ritual abuse”/“multiple personality disorder” became popular where an ostentibly young girl would regularly call in claiming that she was being held prisoner and would be killed/raped (it was unclear as to which) on Halloween. Forget how DUMB it sounds now, back tben it was pretty creepy. The staging was well done, Larson had people claiming to be cops on the show trying to track the kid’s call and the big revelation about 1 week before Halloween that she was a “multiple personality disorder” was a shocker (again, at the time). It was pretty good radio drama (except that he kept claiming it was real). It’s probably the same mentality that watches Jerry Springer. I’ve outgrown this to a large degree, but back then (mid/late '80s)…
I used to listen to him on the radio long ago when he was playing in Ohio raido.
I even went to see his act in person!
All I ever remember about his radio program was him saying “This has been the worst day/week ever for donations. We’ll have to go off the air if some people don’t start calling and pledging.”
But he said this all the time. I don’t know how he stayed on thwe air so long with no money ever coming in according to him.
I’ve never heard of him, but it sounds like good humor. I love guys like that. Some friends of mine and I would do the MST3K thing when Robert Tilton was on. When he began talking in tongues, we’d all do the same. We’d turn into a Three Stooges act when Tilton would ask everyone to put their hands on the TV screen to be healed.
I particularly liked when did the ButtercupBob and BattlinBob.
One day people would call in and he’d agree with all they said and was so nice, next day he’d be pretend belligerant and argue their socks off.
Catch him while you can!
He won’t be on the air much longer if you don’t donate!!!
What scares me is that pastors still flock to his “spiritual warfare” conferences, apparently believing that he is some kind of expert of doing battle with Satan. So a lot of people who are suffering from depression, or from more severe mental illnesses are going to go untreated, because the pastor will make an automatic diagnosis of “possession”
God help one of these pastors if they actually come up against a real demon, (I think Bob may have once… we see the results). Someone who learned to do “exorcisms” at a Bob Larson conference, trained by someone who probably has no actual experience in casting out demons would more likely than not end up possessed themselves.
Thanks for the link. I checked it out and I’d not worry about this turkey running out of money, he won’t. The whole thing is little more than an ad for books and videos with some pretty fantastic stories tossed in. There’s lots of people who’ll blow the roll on anything about the supernatural, especally if it’s Xtian. Sad.
Whaddahell, I have a neighbor who is convinced that Jim Bakker was railroaded by the Godless Government and Jimmy Swaggert, who can’t seem to leave the hookers alone, was set up with, “temptations that no mortal man could withstand,” followed by several verses from the Book to prove it. He used to (still?) donate to both.
Well hell, it’s his / their money. If it makes them feel good, ok, but they’d be better off just putting it to a dime bag.
The Catholic Church supposedly investigates these things quite thoroughly and skeptically as this kind of false superstition is damaging to the Church.
“This is the present law of the Church and the present official
interpretation. The mind of the legislator is clear according to
legislated norms of interpretation. Some feel the prudential judgment of
the Church to be inadaquate, both those who are more traditional and those
who are more charismatic. The present law is indeed extremely restrictive.
So was Jesus in this matter. There are reasons for this. Anyone performing
any imprecatory exorcism without authorization is in extreme danger. I
cant emphasize this more. If one plays with fire, one WILL GET BURNT!”
And as for those “legitimate” exorcisms which do take place, well, you really can’t make a claim that they were false unless you exmanined the record or participated in the invetigation your self (not that I think they were real.)
On a side note the Catholic Church has done a pretty good job recently of coming forward to debunk itself on some of its more superstitious claims.
My brother’s friend once had a tape of Brother Bob…and each time Tilton closed his eyes (which he does frequently, with an earnest expression on his face) a loud farting sound was dubbed in. If you’re familiar at all with Bob Tilton, you KNOW how funny this would be. Particularly when Tilton would open his eyes again, and say “Thank you Jesus!”
I believe that demonic possession is a very real, and very rare phenomenon.
Anyone who automatically diagnoses any and all mental illness as demonic possession trivializes both.
Lynn-
That’s hilarious. I’ve watched Bob Tilton a few times, and I find his “Pledge me a thousand dollars that you don’t have, and the next day a ten thousand dollar check signed by God will appear in your mailbox” line downright nauseating.
David-
Never actually met anyone that I thought was actually possessed, so I don’t have any personally observed, empirical evidence.
The supernatural, by its very nature, is difficult to prove.
I do think that it is just as fallacious to discount the possibility of the supernatural as it is to automatically assume that the supernatural is at work.
In most cases, I would tend to accept the supernatural as the explanation of last resort.